Making Your Camera Pay

by Frederick C. Davis

There is only one course to pursue—send the photograph to every possible market for it in its special line; then see if it can be viewed from another magazine-angle, and try every magazine of that trend; then repeat and repeat and ship it away again and again. Don't stop until it has been returned from every market with the slightest possibility of buying it. Then sit up nights to discover another shipping-point for it. Keep on to the bitter end; but if your "nose" is working and you keep on steadily, the end will come rather suddenly, and it will not be bitter.

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VII

A SURVEY OF MARKETS

What follows is no attempt to list and classify existing markets, but to offer a generalized survey of magazine needs by class. While the success of the small-town press-photographer is not in proportion to his city's size, the magazines which find their ways to him month after month do not disclose the whole field of markets to him. He needs something more—something to reveal to him the broad needs of magazines. This chapter has as its mission the summarizing of the needs of magazines of every class.

Thus, photographs taken all over the world, showing the beauty and commerce of the old and new eras, are eagerly sought by several magazines. Travel, 7 West Sixteenth Street, New York, wants photographs of out-of-the-way places, unusual methods of producing world necessities, and photographs of general travel interest.

The same may be said of the National Geographic Magazine, though the photographs and articles used by this publication are so specialized and exhaustive that it is rarely a free-lance writer can supply their needs—for they maintain their own staff of writers and explorers. However, if you are able to catch vivid photographs of wide travel interest, here is a most excellent market.

If you are interested in picturing homes, Country Life, Garden Magazine and House Beautiful are waiting for your prints. These magazines are very artistic and use only the best work; but they are interested in unusual gardens, beautiful lawns, landscaping, interior decorating. A house remodelled from a common building to an unusual or striking residence will find ready sale to them if photographs of the "before and after" variety are offered. Nature, sport, and building in the country are the specialty of Country Life, Garden City, New York; Garden Magazine is interested in nothing but gardens and ornamental horticulture, preferably of the personal experience trend. Same address as Country Life. House Beautiful, 3 Park Street, Boston, wants photographs of unusual types of interior decorating and landscape architecture. What a wealth of material a well-kept, modern home contains! Owners should readily give consent to photograph if the photographer explains his purpose.

Arts and Decoration, 470 Fourth Avenue, New York, also uses garden and house material, but runs also to the arts. Photographs of architecture, interior decorating, etc., here find another market.

So it is with the broad field of country-life magazines generally, as an example. House furnishing and "before and after" remodelling pictures are easily obtained and easily sold if well done.